writing – Page 84 – Jean's Writing

Your Novel in ONE Sentence—Anatomy of Story Part 5

Published on May 18, 2015May 18, 2015 by Jean M. Cogdell

Kristen Lamb keeps serving up great lessons on plotting along today it’s nailing down a good logline. I agree, one of my favorite go to books is Save the Cat by Blake Snyder. Now the question for me is… which logline do I use? I’ve written several for same story. Sigh…

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Kristen Lamb's Blog

I used to try to teach from the perspective of an editor, but I found that my thinking was flawed. Why? Because editors are like building inspectors. We have skills best used on a finished product. We are trained to look for problems. Is that a good skill? Sure. But do building inspectors design buildings? No. Architects do. Architects employ creativity and vision to create a final structure. Hopefully, they will have the necessary skills to create and design a structure that will meet code standards.

Creativity and vision are not enough. Architects need to learn mathematics and physics. They need to understand that a picture window might be real pretty, but if they put that sucker in a load-bearing wall, they won’t pass inspection and that they even risk a fatal collapse.

Aestheticism must align with pragmatism.

This made me step back and learn to become an architect. When…

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Do you need a little push to finish writing that book?

Published on May 17, 2015May 16, 2015 by Jean M. Cogdell14 Comments

How about $2000.00?

And a book contract?

Is your WIP still languishing half-finished in a drawer or file?

Maybe this contest is just the incentive you need to finish that book and get a publishing deal.

The Write Life sent out information about a no fee, contest called Publish or Perish.

Deadline August 15, 2015.

So this summer, finish that manuscript and polish it till that thing shines like a brand new penny. Then put together a killer marketing plan and head over to Publish or Perish and enter their latest contest.

Sounds so exciting right?

Do you know of another contest?

If so share the info in the comments section and let’s get writing.

I love comments, tell me what’s happening with you and if you’re not already, please follow @jeancogdell on Twitter or jean.cogdell on Facebook!

Hunting for symbols?

Published on May 12, 2015 by Jean M. Cogdell1 Comment

I use Scrivener and MS Word for my writing.

Don’t ask why, I’m just weird that way. However, Sometimes my writing flow is interrupted when I can’t remember the shortcut key for a specific symbol.

Searching through the Insert Symbol tab is like coming to a stop sign.

To ease my irritation a little, I made a cheat sheet and thought I’d share.

So if you are tired of searching for just the right symbol as if you’re looking for a matching pair of socks in a drawer that won’t close. Hope this helps.

Shortcut keys for symbols

Ctrl+Alt	em dash
Ctrl+W	Close the active window / document.
Ctrl+Z	Undo an action.
Ctrl+Y	Redo the last action or repeat an action.
Ctrl+S	Save a document.
Ctrl+P	Print a document.
Ctrl+K	Insert a hyperlink.
Alt+Left	Arrow Go back one page.
Alt+Right	Arrow Go forward one page.
Ctrl+C	Copy selected text or graphics to the Office Clipboard.
Ctrl+V	Paste the most recent addition to the Office Clipboard.
Ctrl+Shift+A	Format all letters as capitals.
Ctrl+B	Applies or removes bold formatting.
Ctrl+I	Applies or removes italic formatting.
Ctrl+=	Apply subscript formatting (automatic spacing).
Alt, F, A	Save As.
Alt, S, T, I	Insert Table of Contents.
Alt, S, T, R	Remove Table of Contents.
Alt, W, F	Full Screen Reading – View > Document Views > Full Screen Reading.
Alt, W, R	Ruler. View > Show/Hide > Ruler.
Alt, F, X	Exit Word.